Aces of Asphyxiation
by Stu-P0t
Summary: How does it feel to choke on your own air? To be drowning in intoxication that runs through your very veins? Cloud and Zack have already lost at their own game; Sephiroth does more than just cheat at cards. Heartbeat, heartbeat… collapse. C/Za/Se triangle
1. Your Guardian Angel

**Disclaimer:** Only the writing belongs to me.

**Author's note:** This is a (belated, ohmygawd I can't believe I was a few hours late) birthday fic for **Aoi Para**. She just rocks so hard, kthx. Everyone should love her. And read her fics. And have a shrine of her in which to worship. (Hope you like it, doll.)

**P.S.** This is sort of set in the world of Crisis Core, just so ya'll know. The world, not the story. The plotline is all mine. This is my very first Final Fantasy fic… ever. I really don't know how it's going to turn out, but I hope it's not abysmal or something. Maybe you could leave a review to tell me what you think!

(For everyone waiting for an update on Black Orchid, it's coming. Don't fret.)

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**Aces of Asphyxiation**

'Your Guardian Angel'

Sheets. A deafening silence that clung to the recesses of his mind like a sticky spider web. Light. Hope that trickled through the broken patches of roof in the church. Calluses… the rough spots on places of his skin that he wore like battle scars.

Calluses on his mind, calluses on his soul. Everything… rough, hardened, everywhere. Their hands had been spoiled but not yet broken. Their lives had been shattered but the pieces were casually being mended. Their promises and friendships had split into an irreparable state. They spit blood because that was the price of freedom… the price of protecting others. The price of being a hero.

Or perhaps that's what they wanted to think, simply to avoid being labeled thoughtless cowards hiding in places that held fond, pleasant memories… places that they could recognize and pretend were in fact locations close to their heart. This church wasn't Aerith's… this church wasn't even a church, and to call it so would be considered a heinous crime against whatever god was supposed to be worshiped in the so-called temple. This church was a place of lost souls and of dim lighting that only graced them through cracks and broken places in the roof and walls. This place… sometimes they called it home when they didn't know where to turn to.

Late, late nights let in chill drafts and unsightly things… monsters of the mind and of the body alike. Monsters brought on by the intoxication speeding through Cloud's blood, pumping through his veins and to his heart. Monsters designed by cruel thoughts and dubious actions… monsters that thrived off memories and falsehoods and watery clones of things that once were dreams.

There is no honor in running, Cloud remembered someone saying. But was there truly honor in standing to fight something for no cause? Was there honor in wasting a life for the sake of pride?

Maybe. The blonde didn't lose sleep over such objective matters; there were already enough nightmares to plague his mind and rob hours of his precious slumber. The poison was dull, not concentrated… but it spread. And it spread into other people, onto other people… and maybe he'd die, because this wasn't really mako poisoning. It'd been in his blood all along… and too _much _mako would kill him. Sephiroth knew it, teased him about it… because those large pale hands really were delicate, and when they ghosted across Cloud's skin he'd freeze. He was only seventeen, and the silver-haired beast… well, neither Zack nor Cloud ever pinpointed his age. Just another formality… a number that meant nothing at all. Sephiroth's words were chilling, left Cloud on edge… because he seemed ambiguous and mysterious enough to just vaguely resemble a dream. The pain was not a dream; the pain could have never been considered a dream.

Zack remained hopeful; a friend to Cloud and a friend of a friend to Sephiroth. It stayed casual for some time, though with each moment they spent together the atmosphere seemed to turn tenser. Cloud's waking dreams would always shatter the mood, his blue gaze unfixed and wandering in a place that didn't truly belong to this world. There were always thoughts of Nibelheim and Goganga, though they were never mentioned between the two. Sephiroth would come and go as he pleased… because there was no home for him. Because SOLDIER seemed the only place he belonged, and his friends…

There were just better things to think about; their silver-haired company never seemed to get hung up over idle, frivolous things like that. A mention of Nibelheim made him want to steal Cloud's hometown as his own… but not much of anything like that could - or ever would - be spoken.

It was as if a law of silence; their bodies would shift but more often than not their lips would not move. Simple conversation carried on between Zack and Cloud, and other times Zack and Sephiroth, but as a group the three never saw much point in conversing.

Now they were hounds hunting for scraps, their noses pushing in the trash of overturned barrels. Hypothetically, perhaps. The blood on Cloud's hands and the deteriorating muscle hardly seemed hypothetical to him, though. Zack wouldn't stand for it. Of the few things that made Cloud smile these days, it was the dark-haired boy's sense of pride and refusal to let go of things he cared about. He was older, more mature—he valued pretty things and notions of love and honor. He nurtured broken flowers in the cracks of the flooring and wrote letters full of sentiment that he never had the heart to send. Zack would take a bullet for Cloud—Zack kept them safe from becoming hunted and torn to pieces. Sephiroth was playing for both teams… reality had only ever been but a game to him.

At one point it was possible he'd cared about them. Cared that Cloud was sick but remained optimistic. Cared that Zack had known his friends and that the soldier did the best he could to save them. Cared for the two of them individually, separately. Cared… cared at all. Maybe he still did care, but maybe… maybe, maybe, maybe… just not _enough_.

Lying atop white linen, body sprawled out drastically, Cloud liked to think Sephiroth cared (but maybe only because he didn't know that he _didn't_ care). After all, why would he sleep in the same bed if he didn't? Why would he bother with affection at all? And if it wasn't affection—hadn't ever been affection—then what could it have been? Cloud didn't know; it didn't concern him.

"Cloud?"

_It's just another one of those dreams…_

_Am I waking up now?_

"Cloouuudddd?"

Zack's hands were on his shoulders, pulling him up ever so slightly. The makeshift bed (a simple futon on the floor covered with white sheets and suited with a little pillow) protested against the old flooring as the soldier leaned into it.

Blue eyes flickered opened, gloved fingers gripping wrinkled sheets.

_It's just another one of those dreams…_

Zack resisted addressing him a third time, feeling Cloud's shoulders tense against his hands. The older male let his hold slip, recoiling back into himself. Cloud's dusty-colored eyelashes fluttered gently, his fingers relaxing against the white fabric. Just Zack.

Slowly, sluggishly, Cloud realized where he was. It took him a moment to flip over onto his back, his motions labored with the heaviness of sleep. An arm reached out, almost desperate in its intent, pulling Zack on top of him. Zack blinked. Cloud blinked. They breathed.

"It's okay, I'm real," the darker-haired male whispered.

Cloud breathed again, fingernails digging into his back, holding him tight against his chest.

_I'm real_. It was the only thing Cloud needed to know. He let go, his hands sliding down Zack's sides, comforted just knowing that he was completely and wholly tangible. And Zack was there. Zack would always be there. Cloud had a certain sense of… naïveté about him that, in some situations, could've been considered endearing. He'd been happy since he first sought out his dreams, and it was safe to say that he still remained so. It felt easier to remain contented, and in spite of his situation he still had to smile at Zack. And Zack had to smile back.

A chaste kiss on the lips, a teasing, playful tug on Cloud's belt; two pale hands came to push at Zack's chest, a lazy laugh issuing from the blonde.

"I think I'd rather dream," Cloud remarked slowly, and at that Zack gently bit his neck.

"I'd rather not be real, then."

"You don't mean that."

"Maybe I do."

In turn, there was a certain sense of smugness about Zack that just went unrivaled. It didn't seem too over the top; instead of a cockiness that ruled his whole personality it was a subtle, almost boyish sense of conceit that he carried with him. It just was another part of Zack Fair that made him who he was. And Cloud liked that. And, in some strange way, Sephiroth gave the impression that he was fond of that fact, too.

"Help me up," Cloud ordered, but the demand was something of a watery one (almost as if asked rather than commanded). Sure enough, Zack recoiled, bringing himself to his knees, then slowly stood and offered Cloud one hand. Cloud reached forward, getting a firm grip on Zack's hand, allowing his partner to assist him in standing, stumbling forward a little.

xxx

"_You don't have to be afraid. You don't ever have to be afraid. I'm here to protect you, Cloud."_

"_I can protect myself, though."_

"_When you can't, I'll be there."_

"_Is that a promise, then?"_

"_It's a promise."_

"_I hear SOLDIERs are good on their word."_

xxx

"The scariest thing you have to protect me from… is myself." Cloud grinned lopsidedly, letting his fingers slip out of Zack's hand and drift back to rest at his side.

"I think I'll manage," Zack responded, extending his arm and ruffling Cloud's blonde spikes in a fond, loving way.

You'll never know when it'll be my chance to disappear, Cloud had once told Zack.

It's not nice to joke about those things, Zack would respond.

I know, Cloud would say, and then the conversation died a quiet, peaceful death. Cloud had dreams and ambition and something he could reach for—Zack had similar thoughts and fought to keep Cloud's ideas alive. Should he die… No, he really had no time to think about things like that.

Looking out one cracked, nearly shattered window, Zack sighed in thought. Thoughts always seemed to be like petals in the wind, and memories like feathers tucked between crevices where one might not chance to look. "I think we should head to the market again."

Cloud lifted Zack's hand from his head, sad blue eyes focused on Zack's sword; even if his eyes were sorrowful, Cloud wasn't. It was just the poison. Only the slow, draining poison. Zack made it okay.

"I guess this is the time where you're supposed to tell me why we're going there," Cloud responded, taking slow strides to where he'd left his weapon and his helmet and… essentially, all of his things. He played with one earring absently, looking back to see if Zack cared to follow him.

"I thought that we might be able to catch Sephiroth in town again. That would be good, wouldn't it?"

Cloud thought it over for a moment. The things Sephiroth said, on one level or another, disturbed him. They made him shiver and question himself and the world around him. Something about him said evil, but… wasn't there always two sides to the fence?

Cloud brushed off his clothes as if brushing off sand from his sleep, hoping never to dream again.

"Yeah. Wouldn't it?" Cloud echoed, donning his helmet.

They would look just like everyone else. Just like old times.

Just like always, really.

xxx

"You're getting on my nerves, kid."

The soldier tossed his head, giving a little laugh. "Yeah. I hear I'm especially good at that."

The marketplace was more than just a marketplace. It was pitiful, a little square plot of land where no human being in their right mind should've shopped. It could have easily been confused for the slums, the sleazy shop owners rubbing their plump, greasy fingers over any and every amount of gil tossed their way. They were robbers in the garbs of businessmen, their eyes narrowed and gazes hardened, staring through the souls of their customers.

Cloud and Zack were a breath of fresh air to this part of town, the two companions whispering their thoughts without the use of words. To many it would be considered love, but… wasn't this just friendship? Love was Sephiroth; Sephiroth and his plans… Sephiroth and his eloquence, his way of cradling a body to his chest with such care. Sephiroth and his sheer ambiguity.

Did love have to be ambiguous? Cloud didn't know. Zack didn't know. But Zack loved the stupid, ignorant blonde anyway. Zack loved the man who could die from being around him and Sephiroth for too long. Zack loved the man who…. Was still very much a boy. And in some strange way, he almost wanted to keep his boyishness.

"You can stop carrying me now," Cloud complained, chin resting on Zack's shoulder, uncomfortably digging into bone.

"How do I know you won't fall again?" Zack shifted, eyes trained away from the beggars on the streets, avoiding the mothers and their children.

"You'll never know if you don't let me try—Zack. Don't we have something for them?"

"We've got nothing. If we did, I would've offered already."

"Mm," the blonde offered a vague understanding nod, blue eyes fixed on the dirty brown hair of a boy with bright, chartreuse green eyes. He didn't stop looking at that boy, nor did the boy turn from his blue gaze, until Cloud disappeared into a makeshift building (that should've really been called a tent).

"…please?"

Cloud never said please. Not in that tone—not ever, really. Cloud didn't whine—it just wasn't something that went along with his character. But that soft little begging, artfully whispered in his ear with a faint tinge of breathiness, got to Zack. It got to him in a way that just said, "let _go_." So he did. Zack had morals, of course he had morals—but whoever said a person with morals wasn't subject to their libido?

Cloud didn't mind. Cloud knew just the accidentally cute little ways to twist Zack all up in his pale fingers. And he knew, yet… Yet at the same time, it just seemed so very unintentional. And after a while Cloud got to thinking that, maybe, yes, it was. That didn't change the fact that he slid, just like syrup, down his back, but did not end up as a puddle of goo at his feet. Cloud wasn't like that. It just wasn't in him. He stood on both feet, firm and solid like one of those frozen chocolate bunnies.

"See?" He said, because even with the question mark there it wasn't really an inquiry.

And Zack replied with an, "I see."

They should have held hands, though the seedy bar didn't exactly call for that. The dimly lit tables and counters gave the place an air of languor, and _that_ held hands with its friend the stink of alcohol. Sephiroth was there—of course he had to be there, leaning back in his booth like he fucking owned the place. He could've owned it, sure, _and_ fucked it to boot. But Sephiroth wasn't smug at that point. Sephiroth just wasn't drunk and Sephiroth just wasn't with anybody. Alone. But he didn't look like he'd been expecting anyone, either. Thus when two soldiers waltzed up to him, just like that (everyone around there wore soldier uniforms—it was just customary), he had to raise an eyebrow.

"Sephiroth." Off went Zack's helmet. Back then they weren't looking for him.

"Since when do you two match?" A slow sigh traveled through his lips, though he made no move to so much as budge. Cloud seated himself partly on the table.

"Why aren't you drinking?"

Cloud didn't process the answers to either of his companions' questions, though remembered they'd been exchanged. Like business cards. Like weapons in a time of war. Casually. Seriously. Contradictorily.

Cloud remembered his name, though. Of course he remembered that… but it was the fact that he was being addressed that made him turn his head, cock it slightly. The story didn't make sense at that time.

"Yeah?" he asked, because that was also a customary thing to do when you were addressed.

"It's good you came," Sephiroth said, and at that point it almost seemed like he had been expecting them. But he hadn't—he never had. Zack didn't drink, Cloud didn't drink… it was those two who had gone searching for the silver-haired beast in hopes of finding him, not the other way around.

But it was always funny how things seemed to just work out.

"I want to talk to you." And there was a certain amount of sincerity in his eyes that Cloud had nearly missed—looked away from, never saw. But he did see that -- that subtle flash of delicacy, that tenderness in the hollows of his irises, rounding about his tear ducts.

"Me?" It was asked stupidly, like a dramatic question lacking all its drama. Like a poor reiteration of some fantastical play.

Sephiroth's hand extended, sweeping out in some sort of fancy gesture. Then his fingers curled inward, extending and then repeating the process. Come here, they said. Just come right over here.

"Yes. Zack, a drink if you will?"

"'m not your slave," he mumbled, but there was a grin that followed it. It was all fun and games, just a jolly old good time. Hopeful fun in blatant tragedy. Those long fingers of Sephiroth's shooed the soldier away.

Cloud's smile was nervous, like a girl unsure if she were about to be raped in a dark, stinking alley. But he never thought things like that – well, never wasn't quite right. It was just not very often at all.

"Come here," Sephiroth's voice finally matched his movements, and after a moment of silence Cloud found himself shifted all the way back into Sephiroth's lap.

It was a warm place, that lap. A very, very warm, comfortable place.

And those hands bestowed kisses upon his head, but instead of his devious mouth it was his gentle fingertips—Sephiroth's hands playing with his face, his hair.

"Since you're here… I think you'd make a pretty little doll."

Cloud never had a knack for words, but this strange and sickening thing seemed to crawl out from the back of his throat, leaking from his half-parted lips.

"Play with me," he breathed.

Sephiroth kissed his neck. Thoughts flooded to the back of his mind, joining recessing memories. Things started to not make sense, like rivers floating in skies.

He didn't remember the affections, just the aftereffects. His body going cold for strained, long moments. Sephiroth drinking his drink, Zack saying a few garbled words. It looked like Cloud was there… but of course he wasn't.

The curtain faded on the scene.

Metaphorically, of course.

xxx

"Cloud…?" The blonde's figure slumped forward dramatically, a puppet with its strings twisted in all the wrong directions. "Cloud!"

Heartbeats rung through the soldier's ears, slamming through his chest.

_I can protect myself._

Zack was there to hold Cloud back up, Sephiroth at his other side. He'd tried to stand, that blond-haired beauty, and made a fool of himself. He had no brain—again with the metaphors. Between the two of them, supporting his weight was simple, easy. Avoiding being the spectacle of the bar, however, was not such an effortless task. It was a careful balance beam; perhaps they could pass him off as just another drunkard who'd collapsed on the spot. Concern flooded Zack's body, wrenching at his own heart, making the drunken man correlation impossible.

"Cloud!"

_I'll always protect you._

"You're attracting attention," came Sephiroth's murmured reminder.

"Hey, hey…" Zack spared a glance at Sephiroth a moment, swallowing. "Wake up… we're right here."

The delicate nudges and soft, soothing words did nothing to penetrate the swelling deafness that flowered through Cloud's body and swallowed his insides. Dizzyingly blue eyes slowly slid closed.

Heartbeat, heartbeat… collapse.

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**Author's note:** Interesting, no? Well, hopefully. The ending was all, well… so unusually short for my style. I'd love it if you could leave lil' ol' me a review of some sort; I'd really appreciate it. It'd give me incentive to keep writing and stuff.

**P.S.** Should the story continue in third person or in Zack's first person?


	2. Loud Like a Whisper

Author's note: Holy… guacamole, people

**Author's note:** Holy… guacamole, people. I never expected this story to get so much attention, honestly. It's a little overwhelming… but all your awesome feedback just makes my day! Thanks so much to all of you. Sorry it was confusing – it might be for the next chapter or so. I do hope that you'll stick around to see what happens, though. I've decided on third person, though the next chapter will be very different… oh, you'll see. For now, behold the newest chapter! (It's sooo short, uuugh.)

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**Aces of Asphyxiation**

'Loud Like a Whisper'

For the longest time they thought he was dead.

For the longest time they couldn't hear his heart beating.

And for the longest time, he could have been. But there were no thoughts about the Lifestream, no warmth or rays of welcoming light, no trickeries seducing him to the devil's view of heaven. He heard water, slowly dripping… drip drop, drip drop, repetitively. He saw Zack's hand extend, fingers begging to be granted a final brush against skin. And he did see himself die -- but it really wasn't him. The thuds in his ears, in his head, banging through his body… it was all like the ticking of a grandfather clock set to the sound of a pulsating heart. It was Zack who fell in the mud with a pained cry of death. It was Zack whose body writhed and spasmed with moments of gurgling agony that seemed so very unwonted for him. It was Zack who…

Zack must have been dead. And maybe that was the thing that had killed Cloud; maybe that was what made Cloud's eyes refuse to flutter open again, too obstinate and heavy to want to lift themselves. Perhaps that was the reason Cloud just didn't hang on.

No, that didn't make sense. Cloud's eyes, a brilliant blue, did reveal themselves to the world.

And 'the longest time' had never really been a long time at all.

xxx

_Sometimes I think I'm awake..._

_But it always feels like I'm dreaming._

_People say this and that, this and that, smile and wave or maybe even cry a little. Zack always smiles, though. It's funny to see him smile and cry at the same time. I didn't even notice that… well… how could I have seen…_

_Everything just looks blurry. At times I can't even open my eyes. Maybe I have a perpetual squint… like I can't even _see_ the world like other people do._

_But I've thought about not being human before. About just being this giant… mass in the middle of space, composed of ever rearranging atoms. And then I think about being this rock plummeting to the earth's surface, landing in a lake. What do ripples mean? Am I just another part of the Lifestream?_

_Isn't it just so… repetitive? I just wish things could make sense._

_But they don't._

_Not really._

xxx

"Cloud," came the hoarse, delicate whisper. It sounded almost like a lilting sob, a tragic note that belonged in an Italian opera. The blonde could make out the little patterns of Zack's breathing, feeling himself slide into consciousness again. Everything… was funny. Just so damn… out of place. Like they were back in Midgar on a swing set, swinging their troubles and woes and lives away. Like they were a year ago—like they were when life felt like it meant something. Like it could be held in their hands and tasted and cuddled and cradled and _cherished_. Like it wasn't just a flower waiting to be trampled under the boot of a careless, harried murderer. Like… life could be when you remembered the past for something it really wasn't.

Cloud's head moved, feeling heavy against the maroon cushions. It made him sickly and nauseous, feeling almost as if lying in a pool of his own blood, drowning, desperate to move. Voluntarily, his mouth opened, drawing in a breath and feeding his lungs precious air.

_Sephiroth's gone._

"Hey, _Cloud_."

_Cloud this, Cloud that…_

_Who's talking?_

_Just me._

_Must be sleeping again._

…_right?_

Pale fingers swept through messy blonde spikes, begging the body they belonged to… to just _answer_. But his pleading wasn't met with anything worthwhile—all he received in turn was a dazed look towards the room's curtains and then… nothing. His eyelids, paper thin armor for his pupils and irises and system of sight, slipped like a sheet over a vast ocean of blue. And he was gone again. Zack held his body close, much like a girl cradles an old, loved rag doll, breathing. Waiting for him to wake again, to so much as stir. Just to watch him breathe and not wonder if it'd be his last breath.

_Just._

_Wake. _

_Up._

A strangled gasp met with the toxins in the air; Cloud's chest lifted an insignificant amount, greeted with a sudden jerk of Zack's hand against his back and another small cry. They were all alone. Blank space filled with two bodies… two bodies, a couch, and a missing Sephiroth. But had he ever been there at all? Had the whole ordeal… been inside Cloud's head?

His heart throbbed, a gentle pitter-patter that grew like a disease inside his chest, pounding and racing and _galloping_ until he choked. Even if there was nothing he could possibly choke on.

Except his own words.

_Zack._

His mouth moved, desperation flitting across scared blue eyes. He breathed, shuddering, reaching up to dig his nails into his comrade's back in a moment of sheer anxiety. What was _happening_?

"It's okay."

Maybe that did make it okay. Maybe hearing Zack's voice was all he needed.

But how could it be… when he'd lost the ability to make his own heard?

Cloud had fallen, voiceless, into another deep slumber.

A metaphorical curtain fell over his vocal chords, leaving all sounds dead against the thick, heavy air.

xxx

"_Can you please keep a secret?"_

_They weren't breathing._

"_I love you."_

xxx

Sephiroth.

His head ached, split with indecision and memories that didn't exist—severed between life and the surreal strangeness of the dream world. But he awoke so slowly, clarity stinging in his blue eyes. A foggy haze latched to the corners of his vision, feeling like a weak, watery blindfold. Cloud could make out vague shapes, embodiments of people, reaching out an arm to somebody he hoped was there. But there was nothing to grasp onto—just dead, thin air.

"It's getting worse."

"H-how..?"

Zack stuttered. Zack never stuttered. It didn't seem something he was even _capable_ of.

_Za…ack._ His mouth formed syllables that his vocal cords simply refused to croak out, straining with labored effort. They didn't seem to glance back at those flexed fingers, grabbing for more than just a body—grabbing for a better life for both of them. For all three of them. His arm dropped, lifeless against the couch, eyes dull and listless. He listened as if he hadn't even existed.

"Spreading… you can't take care of this yourself, Zack."

"I know what he needs. It's not… do you really think I can drag him off to a laboratory somewhere? They'd _kill_ him."

"Don't you think… it's better than watching him slowly decay like this?" And Sephiroth knew. The pain in his eyes gave it away—the thoughts of Genesis, the feelings he had for Angeal that he saw so clearly in Zack. "Wouldn't you want him to go out peacefully?"

"_No_, I…" Confusion seized his throat, muddling the thoughts in his brain. He couldn't think straight with Sephiroth's soft, deep voice of reason, begging him with threads of logic laced with anguish. Sephiroth didn't want to see him die, either. But why would he even so much as suggest… "I can't let you do it. You'll have to go through me.

Cloud rose slightly against the couch, struggling to prop himself into a sitting position. His vision cleared momentarily—it was enough to see that Zack gripped the silver-haired male by his shoulders, staring wildly into mako green eyes. It was like staring back at a reflection of the same strange color—a pigment Cloud's eyes lacked. Mako would kill him. He'd never make it into SOLDIER (much as he fought for it). Back in Nibelheim… even the air made him sick. But he'd never wanted to be a cause for argument, not a subject of discussion. Not wanting to be some sort of _object_ that defined his comrades' moral code.

"You're not going to take him," Zack affirmed, words biting. Cloud didn't like the tone; the blonde wished he'd say something more pleasant, return to his place by his side and gently cradle him in his arms. Instead they broke into an ugly spat.

"I will. Do you think I want to see him suffer?" Hands pushed back at Zack.

Incredulously, the younger of the two countered with, "And you think _I_ want to see him suffer?"

Lacking the strength to do so (but managing to anyway), Cloud slid off the couch, picking himself up and stumbling forward, feet dragging hopelessly across the wooden floor. This wasn't their church. A vague, distant memory of smells and sounds told him that Sephiroth had showed him this place once before, for whatever reason…

_Stop. Please stop._

They couldn't hear him. Zack turned, blonde spikes blotting the corner of his vision, and stood there dumbly for the first time since… since Cloud had ever known him. In the next instant the look was gone, though, swallowed by one instead of relief and sadness, arms around the more slender figure like a protective cocoon.

_I don't want to die._

"Cloud," Zack breathed, surprisingly met in unison with the man standing only inches from them. Their fight had not ended.

"We're going to take you somewhere safe. We can't live here anymore."

"We can't leave."

Cloud clutched Zack tightly, viciously, desperately, his head falling into the crook of his neck.

"They'll chase us," Zack added hastily, returning Cloud's anxious, grieving affection with a tight, loving hold. They were more than just the best of friends.

"Let them. You always were one for excitement, right?" At that Sephiroth turned away, seeming to inspect the number of cracks in the once sturdy wooden enclosure. "If we go for the reactor… of _course_ they'll chase us. But in the end… won't we have a sense of peace?" Even Cloud, only half-hearing the conversation, could tell the eldest of the three was holding back something. Tears, anger, fear…? He couldn't tell what.

"We agreed _never_ to…"

"He's dying, isn't he?"

"_Shut _up."

"Agree or be left behind."

All Cloud could remember was a sea of colors—a body hit the floor somewhere, but he felt nothing. Maybe it wasn't his. Did he… Zack?

xxx

Cloud, slung over muscled shoulders, bouncing with a slightly rushed gait, felt very much like a backpack being carried cross-country. As if he were the only valuables anyone ever cared to take – and maybe, in a way, that was true. Sights and sounds and the distant taste of the ocean assaulted his senses, scents swirling around his nose, hands clutching the silver-haired, pale man beneath him.

_Sephiroth… again?_

Cloud swallowed, blue eyes suddenly frantic. Where was Zack? Was he… did he _die_ like the dream? Where was Zack… where was—

_Zackkkk…_

Not even the strangled noise of his sob met his carrier's ears, still quiet as if he'd never even protested in the first place. Anxiety chilled every inch of his skin, fear congealing like swallowed snot in his stomach. His flesh crawled, shivered, and only then was Cloud met with that impossibly beautiful gaze.

Time froze, iced over by the deadly flecks of danger in those mako-infused eyes. Quivering fingertips stilled in that moment, petrified by the still atmosphere. But when time relapsed, corrected itself, readjusted the instant… Cloud wasn't crying anymore. He just sighed as if he lacked the energy to do anything else, digits curling in forlorn need for the familiar hilt of his weapon. Nothing felt _right_ anymore, as if… As if somebody had tried to make it all better and failed to a miserable, cataclysmic degree. Sephiroth breathed, the wind that blew the dust in their faces in clouds. And this was a road Cloud had never set eyes on in his life.

"You all right back there?" The voice was smooth as silk, like a milky hand reaching out and giving him thoughtless, liquid caresses. Cloud winced, head nuzzling into the crook of his… captor's neck. Because even being a comrade, he felt shackled and strangled being in his presence.

xxx

"_It's the suffocating feeling of love."_

"_I… can't."_

"_Just breathe. It'll go away."_

"_What if I…"_

"_You can."_

"_I…"_

"_Cloud."_

_Silence._

"_You can."_

xxx

Whispered, thoughtless words were left to be carried on the wings of dead birds, feathers caught by the wind and blown into the hands of little children. Quiet, quiet… everything was just so quiet it just got to being too loud. The dusty path, the sound of waves and gulls crying, Sephiroth's harried gate as he kicked rocks from his way, the frequent bouncing of Cloud's body whenever he picked up his pace – it all seemed to mold and mesh into a memory he could vaguely experience with weakened senses, a watery remembrance of a life he almost had.

Cloud had almost forgotten the question, lost in the ambiguity of something his mind could have conjured. He nodded a thoughtless nod, trapped by the constraints of his broken vocal chords, and once again thought to Zack. Why didn't he cry? Why couldn't he cry?

Xxx

"_Reno, give him some space."_

"_The kid's cute! I can't just let him go."_

"_Let him go."_

xxx

_Where's Zack?_

The words never left his pretty lips, though for a moment they stopped. Cloud listened to the gentle tunes of birds twittering nearly next to his ear mixed with far-off sounds he almost couldn't make out. But he was sure of one thing if he wasn't sure of anything else: they were running away. Maybe Zack was dead.

The blonde split apart from his silver-haired counterpart, picked up and put near a rock by the older male. "You know," he began, but Cloud didn't recall hearing him at first. His head was tilted back, staring at the cloud-painted sky, looking dazed. And confused. And possibly even frightened. No, certainly frightened – unimaginably terrified, in fact. "We'll be running for a while."

_Why?_

There were blinding lights and what Cloud thought were visions of a city that should have been familiar. But the dusty trail disappeared, leaving him lying on a bed, tangled up in sheets, alone.

And the ghost of Sephiroth's scent still lingered on his skin.

* * *

**Author's note:** Sooo sorry it took forever. You don't want to know why, trust me. (I lost this document so many times I could just scream – I'll just avoid the lurid details.) But, I did get it up! I won't have time for another update for a while. Going to see my beloved for two weeks and I don't want to waste time writing. I don't know when I'll update next, but… it'd probably help get me motivated if you left me a nice review! Or even a not-so-nice, helpful one. I'd really appreciate it, like you have no idea.


	3. Bad Blood

**Author's note**: This story… is a mystery. But I hope some clarity is offered to you through this chapter. Onwards?

* * *

**Aces of Asphyxiation**

'Bad Blood'

Belt buckles – the clattering sound rung through his ears like a disenchanted bell, haunting and watery. Yearning built in his stomach, turning it into a churning rotisserie of anticipation and anxiety, muscles twitching. A sweet siren's call tugged him to the afterlife, though a body pinned him harshly, cruelly to the bed. A grimace twisted his features, confusion seizing his brain…

Until the entire world and its raunchiness… and all of its hideous, beautiful splendors melted away at his feet. They'd left the inn, he was sure of it. And he was sure he didn't want to belong to the inn and the world anymore.

But only for a slow, swirling moment. He could never be free.

His arm ached, his veins on fire, sharp stinging blasting through his nervous system like a bullet. His mouth worked, a desperate attempt to loose words lost to centuries past.

"Zack."

A gentle croak, the muscles in his throat constricting and contracting. A disgusting sucking noise greeted his ears, increasing the turmoil in his digestive track, followed by an even less attractive spitting sound. Tremors coursed through his lithe form, writhing through the channels of his body and attacking his lower lip, making it quake to a subtle degree. Ivory teeth dug into soft flesh, keeping his dark mouth from quivering, pain pulsating through his entire being, focusing like pure molten lava in his left forearm.

A cancerous terror swelled inside his heart, eating away at the memories that formed there, transferred from his brain and kept safe in the pumping atrium that kept alive. But now, now…

"Don't move."

It wasn't Zack's voice. It was a seductive whisper, a silky demand from the baritone beauty. It always had a faint ring of promise to it… a ring that went hand in hand with the idea of death. Cloud's gaze hardened, dying syllables failing to leak forth from his seemingly bruised diaphragm, fading out before creeping up his esophagus. His whole body tensed, brow crinkling in an expression of ugly pain.

"You're poisoned."

His head swam. Poison… _poison_? How far had it gone to make him forget nearly everything? His blue eyes settled on his aching forearm, a hiss shaking his whole mass. His gaze glued to his destroyed tissue, he felt bile rise in the passage of his throat. Smears of blood decorated his pale skin, Sephiroth's mouth covered with the sticky red liquid. He coughed, struck with the sudden realization that the silver-haired male had been sucking and spitting his blood into a small container, a shiver pinching his spine.

Cloud's eyes snapped shut instantaneously, squeezed far beyond their comfortably closed point. A sudden inhalation allowed his chest to rise in an almost painful manner, though negligible to the spikes throbbing in the bite marks covering his arm.

"Why…?" It burned to speak, tore his raw throat up, made him feel weak and vulnerable.

Mako green eyes stared up at him harshly, and through his closed eyes Cloud felt the man's stare as cruelly as his bites on tender flesh. He released a heavy, shuddering sigh, wondering if that would be classified as "moving".

Sephiroth's lips moved but there were no actual words that refracted from his mirror of a mouth – or not a language that Cloud understood, at first. A foreign tongue melding consonants and vowels together, like fleshing out something that didn't exist. But like a snap of the fingers his speech came back into the range of Cloud's hearing, and he responded slowly, a murky symphony spilling from his lips like the blood that painted around his mouth, slowly trickling. Trickling, trickling, trickling.

And Cloud could hear the sound of his swallowing engulf and envelop the room, the curtains and the wallpaper swallowing with him. His gasp was a desperate inhale, the words of his captor piercing his eardrums like a spike.

No.

No, no, no.

Why couldn't anything be right? The world, just a few days ago, had not been a dream realm that tortured him, run by Mad Hatters with silver hair and Alices with swords. Not with the beautiful people around him all wearing Cheshire Cat smiles and smirks, ready to devour his soul.

And the spitting echoed through Cloud's mind like a raucous thunder, a cacophony of mixed and jumbled sounds, much like an angry riot during a time of war.

And he felt himself slipping. And here he was, young again, feet dipped into a small pool with his hands on his knees, staring at the minnows that flitted through the water, darting this way and that.

"I wanna be a SOLDIER… wanna protect people. Wanna grow up and be strong…"

His toes splish-splashed in the shallows of the water, causing the fish to dart away, lake rippling. But it wasn't really a lake, was it? That was being generous. The pond was crystal clear, light, fresh… and all around him was so, so dark. All-encompassing, frighteningly dark… and yet he felt at ease, comfortable in the cocoon of night, eyes forever trained to the water.

And he kept hearing his own voice throughout the empty space, from age five and progressing onward through the years. He could pick out the different inflections in his tone, gradually losing its tender, boyish squeak and turning into a faint, pleasant tenor. It was odd, listening to his own accent, not having realized what sort of frequencies it had reached when he'd started at such a young age. It was… so innocent. But had it yet lost such innocence?

"I'll be big and strong… and daddy will wanna come back and see how much I've grown up. He won't care I'm sick… 'cause I'll be big and strong and fast. I won't be weak… not at all. And then mommy will smile again… more often."

Had all of those words really left his lips at some point in time? He couldn't really remember ever speaking of his father, not forming a strong connection or relation with the man who shared the same light blue eyes and blond locks as the young Cloud had. When he thought back on it, he barely remembered much more than that they happened to look alike… but recalled enough to know that it hurt not having a strong, guiding hand to keep his posture straight when he felt like falling. He'd always been a petty nuisance to everyone around him—to his mother for so many years, and to Zack… and now Sephiroth. He seemed to simply excel in the art of worrying others—though was Sephiroth really ever concerned? As always, he had no time to think about such things; though, in actuality, it seemed he had… forever and a day to ponder such delicacies of his companion's true nature.

**Hey, don't you want to know where you are?**

_I'm… nowhere._

**No, you're everywhere. Have a look around.**

_I can't see anything._

**Just look harder.**

_It's all… black._

**Oh, come now, you're not even trying, are you?**

_Who are you?_

**I've never been one for cliches, Cloud.**

_Wh-what?_

**I'm… you. Or more specifically, your poisoned brain. Do you really know where you are?**

_I…_

**I'll spare the details. This is where you live. This is where you've lived for… your entire life. Open your eyes, why don't you?**

Another pair of eyelids fluttered open gracelessly, expecting a world still caked to the brim with decadent blackness, but instead met with a torrential downpour of flickering flames that doused the sky with their fire. His pupils soaked in the sight, devouring it in quiet disbelief, mouth working lamely to describe things in which his mind was hard-pressed to simply understand.

**You like it? Remember this? Meteor. On the day you were born.**

_How could I… remember?_

**Because you remember everything.**

_That's not true…_

**Let me show you, then.**

The fire melted across midnight black, crimson copulating with ebony, spilled across a yawning expanse of gasping stars. It faded away, delicately, as well… and all that remained was but a simple, sweet sunset. Cloud's mother smiled. Cloud's father gently held a baby, fast asleep and nestled in the cradling arms of dreamland, to his chest. They both seemed ever so content to watch the sleepy sun sink behind the willowy trees, waiting for the time it would rise again. The cycle of time.

Yet, the next day the sun never did rise. Not in the same way as the day prior… not as bright, as brilliant, as warm.

Cloud's father vanished without a trace.

_I… I don't understand. Why… show this? Honestly!_

**This… is such a pity. Let me explain, if you will. Just take a moment. Let my words absorb into your mind. See the world for how it _really_ is. Don't you know just what you are?**

_If you're me, I already know, don't I…?_

**You're getting the hang of this… but I'll offer you a juicy little tip.**

…

**You're not _really _poisoned.**

_What are you getting at?_

**This? Me? The place your mind has been stuck in? Crystallized fragments of the Lifestream… fused with pure strands of materia.**

…

**Speechless? I understand. But _you_ will begin to see the true way of things in just… one… moment. No more confusion. Life, just as it is, for normal human beings.**

**And the _real_ Sephiroth. You exist only for your past lives.**

**Cloud…**

**Cloud…**

**Meteor.**

Any attempt to keep his feet planted firmly into the so-called reality his mind had conjured instantly failed, the world around him wrenched from view as soon as those words echoed across the darkened expanse of his memories.

"I'm not poisoned," came the weak, almost strangled cry, a furious sense of pain searing every inch of his muscle and tissue; just as violently as it came, however, it dissipated into a thin, tingling vapor that breathed across his thin frame.

"You know?" Lips moved against lips, Sephiroth's mumbled reply crashing into the wet cavern of Cloud's mouth. The blonde tensed, fingernails finding the soft plane of pale skin above him, digging in desperately. But what was it? Love, fear, hope… the lack of _anything_?

"Seph…i…roth." Moans of pain rattle from his tailbone through his mouth, head flying back to fight the clawing apart of his entire being. His very _atoms_ felt as if separating, one by one… splitting apart. And then in pairs. And in dozens. "_Help. Me._"

"I'll make you whole again."

xxx

_Blue eyes snapped open, centering on mako green spheres, glare pointed and precise. A waterfall of gold was thence tossed flippantly over one shoulder, the gems adorning his head tinkling in protest. By all rights they were supposed to sing, but the slender male always felt them screaming in his sensitive ears. A low hum met the atmosphere, a hissing sigh following in suit. Pale lips stretched in an imitation of a smile, gaze glimmering and almost translucent in comparison to the solid ocean that seemed to reside inside Cloud's wide, colorful irises._

"_I don't 'fancy' anything. Especially not you." _

"_Perhaps I should drag you into the bedroom… and we can finish this dispute within the confines of tangled silk." A large, beast-like hand came to rest at his cheek, palm cupping his sculpted jaw-line, fingers massaging the bone underneath his pretty porcelain flesh. _

_A clattering stomp, almost resembling a smash, of his heel came down, digging into marble. Tapered fingers lashed across pale skin, fingernails like a stinging whip across Sephiroth's angelic features. Startled, watered down eyes blinked at a rapid rate, hand closing like a metal vice grip around his tiny wrist. A little trail of crimson welled up where Cloud's nails had swept across the fine line of his cheek, spilling down the length of his chiseled and sharp jaw._

"_No." He bit, an outright refusal even as he'd essentially been trapped._

"_It is not an option, nor a simple notion anymore." Picked like a perfectly ripe apple from a tree, Sephiroth maneuvered his other hand to slide down the arch of Cloud's back to push against the base of his spine, pressing him tight against his chest and sinking his teeth deep into the succulent tissue his bare neck provided. A gasp issued forth from the younger male, a sharp inhalation leading him into a sudden struggle, fists flying, nails acting as dangerous claws, attempting to shove his towering figure away (to no avail)._

"_Let go!" But the command was never heard, or perhaps simply never acknowledged, as that wide, smirking mouth pulled away from the wound he'd created and seemed to devour Cloud's, molesting it like molecules and atoms slip effortlessly together in a moment of sheer ecstatic love. Step, step, step. Muffled steps of boots had sex with the floor with every little pressure against its smooth surface. Cloud's heaving body, flushed with infuriation and lack of will to protest against the strange and brutal affections Sephiroth bestowed upon him, arched in a fashion that displayed his youthful flexibility.._

_Click, click, click. Like a horse is lead to water, the soldier was lead to a wall, his lithe body pressed against the solid, rocky foundation. The protests that left his mouth and echoed into Sephiroth's trailed off into moans, then further tapered into squeaks of embarrassed desire. One to tease, the rougher man's hands busied themselves roaming in places the smaller of the two had once not so much as allowed him to look at._

_Material came off in strips, the foundation of his outfit neatly unraveling courtesy of Sephiroth's claws, destroying the handcrafted uniform he'd been particularly fond of only hours before; his intentions now called for a change in his actions, demanded he forget the world and focus on the body standing most… demurely before him. _

"_Sssstoooppp," the doll-like beauty gasped as teeth suddenly attacked and explored the world of his lower lip, stretching instinctually into his massive frame. The prickling in his back returned, reminding him that he knew what real love was like—telling him not to struggle for Zack's sake. And as if a cheap magic trick, a snap of the fingers and a whisper of 'Alakazam', the fight was gone. _

"_Say pleassssse," his cold, ethereal voice purred, rubbing aggressively against the nearly nude soldier that stood, knees threatening to give out, twisted in an unnatural angle, like some delicately crafted china doll. Cloud would never say please—it just wasn't in his nature to completely, willingly give himself over. It just wasn't something he did. Not for Sephiroth._

_Deft thumbs snagged in the stretchy bands of Cloud's undergarments, peeling them away carelessly and with a certain sense of desperate, inhuman haste. The regal nobility had disappeared from his face, giving way to a bloodthirsty monster, bright eyes gleaming in a light that wasn't ever present. It made Cloud squirm, faced with an inability to so much as utter a semblance of an insult, oh so dreadfully vulnerable in his naked state._

_A guttural moan broke through the passage of Sephiroth's mouth, one impossibly large hand tangling in purely blond locks and the other left to drift along his body and press into his thighs, settling between his legs to stroke teasingly at the sensitive skin there. His fully clothed hips gave the tip a rocking nudge, sending pleasant, electric shivers up Cloud's spine and earning a satisfied (if mortified) noise from those wet, pink lips._

"_Nngh, at least… fuck me right," he breathed, body in a state of perpetual shuddering from the attentions Sephiroth laced across every inch of his heated skin._

"_As you wish," came the hissing response, turned over like rotting sugar in his mouth. His hand abruptly stopped its course of action, two of those fingers flying up to shove into the puckered ring of his entrance, tracing the line of his so-called-lover's lips with his tongue, thick fingers probing against the hot vastness of his insides. The pink, spongy passage clenched against the intruding fingers, own delicate hands reaching to clutch at the fabric at the front of the brutal male's shirt, moans spraying quietly from his mouth, the bridge between pleasure and pain impossible to discern. Cloud's muscles tightened, tensing with every tantalizing, rough wiggle of those long digits. Fistfuls of his hair were pulled back, heartlessly tugged as the silver-haired beast continued thrusting with his hips, starting to match that same rhythm with his fingers._

_They turned, Sephiroth's steps holding a graceless, harried not-quite-elegance to them, adding another finger as he whisked him off to the bedroom in quick strides, leaving the soldier unable to stand by the time they reached the doorway. Click, click, click. Fingers left their cozy home, the swelling warmth fading from Sephiroth's skin as it was exposed to the cool winter air. The pale body collapsed against the bed, unsteady, curling up amongst the sheets, caught between forlorn lust and a frantic desire to retreat. Noises leaked from his mouth in a broken stream—moans of neglect and shame and disgust, body decorated a fine shade of pink that blossomed up even the most sensitive crevices of his light flesh. Ivory teeth poked at his dark mouth, gnawing in indecision; the loud, thick 'whump' of clothes smacking innocent flooring greeted his overly sensitive ears, deciding to force himself to crawl across the bed and clutch at the blankets, attempting to cover himself with sickeningly swift movements, jerking the material over his entirely uncovered frame._

_And all at once, his efforts had gone to waste. Long fingers ending in heavily coated, hardened ebony claws, tore away the blanket and rumpled the sheets in the process of pinning his slave to the plush, slightly firm sponginess the world of his bed provided. The jewels about his headpiece tinkled again, nearly forgotten until Sephiroth's hand chose to return to its position and almost timidly caressing it mockingly._

"_J-just… get it over with," Cloud breathed, desire and anxiety coating his voice, syllables painted with both lust and dread. His eyes nervously flicked from Sephiroth's blindingly deep green gaze and to the oils he saw that pale hand extend and reach for, not realizing he'd been holding his breath until it caught in his throat and he released it in an extended, labored sigh. He'd grown somewhat disturbed at what seemed like his captor swallowing their means of lubrication, but as his thighs were separated and a liquid heat encased his member, in the middle of crying out he'd realized that Sephiroth had no intention of ever letting the oil slide down his throat. Nearly choking with his cries, Cloud's back arched dramatically, hips thrusting into the hole of hot pleasure in wild need, embarrassment clinging heavily to his small frame, oozing out of his body like sweat from his pores._

_It didn't last long—stomach swelling pleasure became white hot agony as he felt a tongue slide against his entrance, teasing, using the last of the lubrication before deciding that mere spittle would suffice, replacing the wet organ with his pulsating member. Ankles placed carefully over sculpted shoulders, the slender male let out a shriek, quickly mingled with a choking gasp, body spasming from the pain and the force; he'd shoved and wriggled his way in with a few incredibly rough, rapid gyrations of his hips, clawing down the soft flesh covering his ribs while Cloud's fingers tore across his chest and shoulders in sheer anguish, each movement rocking his little body to a harsh degree. It wasn't for pleasure. It was a sudden, decisive punishment._

"_O-oh g-g-gods!" Bodies, of course, didn't normally bend in the way Cloud's flexible muscles did, pressed chest to chest with the dominating, cruel tyrant. "St-o-oooppp!" Ragged breaths joined the conglomeration of noises, blood oozing out his passageway and trickling onto Sephiroth's thrusting, over-eager cock. His peripheral vision faded to white, blinded with the sudden fear of falling unconscious during this torture session, gasping wildly, writhing in an obviously useless attempt to get away._

_Soon his wails faded to little whimpers of pleasure as blood eased the friction on his poor behind, the feeling of having his prostate hit sending shivers through him once again. Sephiroth's hands, having minds of their own, clutched at his perfect hips and kneaded a trail all the way down to his plump, squishy ass. Cloud's screams started up again, moans tangled in the countless array of noises as a mouth found one of his nipples and sucked fiercely._

"_A-Ah-nngh!"_

_The screams built and built, his walls ever threatening to tumble down with each enthusiastic roll and grind of Sephiroth's body against his._

_And he came. And again moments later when Sephiroth wasn't finished. And again. And again and again until his vocal chords didn't work and he lay completely still, slipping out of reality, unconscious body rocking with Sephiroth's movements several moments later._

_But eventually, the older male finished and retreated, leaving the sweaty, soiled, sweet body draped across the sticky sheets._

_Alone._

xxx

Cloud had to push the thoughts away, to rid them permanently from his mind, forget... the warning signals firing desperately in his brain. This was the real world… and he wasn't sick. Not infected… yet it still felt as if the world itself was trying its hardest to spread the youth in every little direction. Sephiroth would help him, could save him… _loved_ him.

"Bring back Zack…" Choke, gasp, moan.

"He's gone." His voice, draped in silk and dripping with husky splendor, licked sensually across the lines in his lips.

"I love you." He didn't mean it. Cloud was suffocating in the bubble of his love.

"I love him," he breathed, brain choking.

"Only one, Cloud."

**Meteor.**

_I can't choose._

**The one you decide on lives…**

**And the other…**

* * *

**Author's note:** Man, I suck at clarification. Reviews… maybe? Or… flames, I guess. Whichever you feel it deserves.


	4. Don't Know When but a Day is Gonna Come

**Author's note:** I am going to begin to seriously drop hints as to what is going on. It's... a little complex to figure, but, I really sincerely hope I'm not wasting your time with all this. It **does** have a point, it's all just quite obscure. Maybe, if you hang on 'til the end, you'll be glad you stuck around... Maybe...? Hopefully...?

If you're wonderful enough to lend me a review, I'd very, very much appreciate it. I have been extremely ill as of late, and… reviews make me smile, they really do. They let me know you enjoy what I do, and I feel loved and motivated to update. Because, really, if I'm going to drag my fevered, sick ass off the couch to type… it's gotta be worth it. Catch my drift? All those that do review, you make my day brighter. I heart you.

**Aces of Asphyxiation **

'Don't Know When but a Day is Gonna Come'

_If I have to choose... If I'm going to..._

_Know what I'm doing..._

_Heh..._

_What am I doing?_

_What in __**hell**__ am I doing...?_

xxx

"Hey, you--you know that kid is destined for the corpse pile, right?"

"Gonna put him out of his misery..."

"Shut **up**!"

"You... shut up..." It was the first time his mouth moved in days.

xxx

Zack's fingers brushed against the folds of his clothes, eyes hanging half a lid open and half a lid closed, unfocused and aimlessly somber. He'd lost them both, hadn't he? He'd broken his promises, hadn't he? All the sweet tumbles and curious kisses, precious whispers in the blackness of night... words spoken of devotion and protection and... _love_. It hadn't been a lie... _nothing_ he had ever licked into Cloud's memory could be quantified as vows he meant to break. I'll guard you, forever and ever, he told him. Over and over, he spoke those words. And Cloud warned, still, so many times more, that the brunet would have to protect him... only from himself. From his own body. And maybe... in a roundabout way, his words stung in ironic honesty. Zack couldn't will himself to believe... it was no longer Sephiroth that stepped in and shoved him to the cold and moist floor. It couldn't have been. It was always... It...

Cloud carried too much influence on the misguided, mako-eyed beauty's already troubled shoulders. And, Zack knew... No. Something about the man made his knees buckle. Had he still... hadn't Sephiroth been cured? Ugh, fuck. Anxiety, worry, nausea... _dread_ crawled like creepy crawling maggots inside his stomach, and the most he could do to soothe the sickly feeling was to drudge, always meandering, foward. Where had they gone? Where had they disappeared to?

The darkhaired male's sanity, to himself, seemed to be flaking, even as he could have been considered... always the stable man. The smiling, determined, strong and faithful, problem solver Zack. He'd had to put on the big boy pants, nurturing Cloud on the dusty bowels of their hiding places, dashing from place to place and always considering his health before they set foot anywhere. But they were safe, always safe, even when they had to sprint through the sewers and hide in the slums. Zack's arms promised the blond boy safety. And those ambitious blue eyes... they would keep on shining.

Sephiroth dug them a dangerous, thoughtless hole. A trap built of spit and quicksand, conglomerated ideals of overall happiness... happiness that Zack knew could only exist in their minds as a fantasy. But those hands... if he hadn't been so fast, so quick and blunt with the blow... The wind urged him to forget, eased him into a cool mindset of calming memories. The tangle of white threads of light, of life... skin against skin... the glowing feeling of lips... kissing, meeting, hearts melded into a milky, pulsating feeling of unity. The memories refused, outrageously vivid within the space of his own body, to corrode or melt away. Cloud...

And everywhere his feet dragged him--everywhere his boots wandered--he could only manage to be half a ghost behind. A murmur, a rumor--gossip on the streets, dew dripping from the heavy street lamps. Every inquiry left him turning in circles, a confused resident leading him this direction and that direction; constant argumentation as to where the man with the floating silver hair and the 'sick child' in his arms had really gone. It was to divert those that chased them, Zack knew, but the fact did not lessen the agitation in his eyes, nor the near manic twitch in his lip from the sheer... sheer... _astronomical_ amount of frustration clogging his pores. He wanted to know, _had_ to know... were they already dead? Captured? Worse? Were their captors chasing him now...?

His fingers fumbled clumsily with the note tucked in his pants. The paper was smooth, rubbed over so many times with the oils of his hands. Crumpled, uncrumpled, folded and unfolded. The words... so simple. Saddeningly, maddeningly simple. Call me, it said. Call me. Call me, call me, call me. Call me, and a little scratchy, scrawled name. Call me.

Reno.

It was just starting to rain.

xxx

"Se…"

He woke with fistfuls of damp sheets, dirt under his fingernails, head lolled in lazy catastrophe. Flashes of nudity rang in his mind, the sound of the ocean, cracking seashells under clammy pale toes. The whistling, haunting cry of gulls, again in his ears, the lull of foam on the shore. No Sephiroth, no Zack… nobody in sight. Just an old home, a home full of beds and blankets and stuffy air. A home full of… the sounds of distant memories.

A home where he sat, bound, to a chair… captive, slave, captive… No. A chair with wheels. A chair with…

A wheelchair?

Cloud's head pushed forward again, eyes closed, chin to chest. Involuntary. So tired.

Opened eyelids revealed snatches of red, fluttering through and above and intersecting his vision. Sometimes it filled it completely, to the brim, and others… a soft glow, effervescent in nature, dim and warm, spreading about his pallid cheeks. There existed little sensation in his body but for the tingling when he glimpsed that solid, raging color. Red. A red so red Cloud struggled to remember any other shade—a red that not even the blue of the ocean could combat.

"Clooo-oouuuddd…? You in there buddy?" A soft rap on the head, repeated—he responded with a groan built from the denseness of his chest. The voice sounded familiar, quaint… and Cloud fuzzily equated it to salmon. The color, the fish… the color.

"No use," the white responded. Yes, _the_ white—the space from which Cloud could faintly make out, but never truly determine. The voice that came from nowhere, that had no mouth, but spoke in tones of all colors. White, the absorption of everything. White, so blanketed and smooth, soft, gradient crimson and egg-shell. It was all he saw for days at a time. Had it really been days? Was his mind just entertaining him with the prospect of time?

The fluffy octave continued, a powder-cloud dream. "He's been like that since he got here. Unresponsive. Poisoned. He can't hear whatever you're saying."

The red portion of the blond's vision removed the sheets settled across his lap in a bundle, tossing them in the hamper. Of course, to Cloud, this action looked entirely vague and ambiguous. Soon, the heavy feeling of cloth over his legs returned like a fresh spring rain. At ease… why were they talking like he couldn't hear? He could hear… just _fine_.

"I don't believe it," the red snorted. "I'm sorry, but… I don't think he's that far gone, yo. We can still save him, right?"

The white fluctuated, up and down, a bobbing motion. In layman's terms, he shrugged. "There's no way to tell."

xxx

**Hey, Cloud? Remember when I told you to choose…?**

_Leave me __**alone**__._

**I wasn't kidding, you know. Sephiroth, do you have any idea whatsoever… what hell he's going through?**

_I'm not… going to listen to you. Everything's… going to be fine. Fine. Fine, fine, fine, fine._

**Fine? A million miles away from fine. Nothing even closely resembling it.**

_Shut up…_

**Say, you know when you used to play piano for your mother…**

_Silence._

**Did it make you happy?**

_Silence._

**Cloud? Did it make you sad?**

_Silence._

**I could kill her, instead, if you wanted.**

_You…_

**Me? Or you?**

_You would never, I would never…_

**And so, they'll drop like flies. Unless you choose…**

_I'll never…!_

xxx

"You're making me sick," he whispered, bundled in blankets and tangled in pillows, all mixed up inside the younger man's embrace. Man, _ha_, he was still yet barely out of boyhood, really.

"I'm sorry," the carelessly soft answer came floating back, kissed on his neck, across his collarbone, up to his lips… "I don't… it's not… It's my fault. Are we going… are they going to make you better?"

"Us," the silver-haired menace promptly corrected, his tone slightly chiding, before rewarding Cloud with a kiss feeling stolen from Zack. Where was he… out in this strange land of Gaia? Did he still pursue, just as the others did? "We're going somewhere to make us better, and you won't have to think about it anymore."

"Oh…" A long, pregnant pause. "Sephiroth…"

Silence to allow the blond to formulate an inquiry.

"Where… is Zack?"

Where is Zack, where is Zack, where is Zack, where is Zack? The question lay violently scrawled against his eyelids. Every blink brought a new prospective answer, and a trail down a land of more falsified information. Hellish confusion graced feverish eyes, so blue, so damn blue they should've just been plucked and sold as gems. Miserable bewilderment pinched his nerves, and amidst a floating shell of unhappy ecstasy he couldn't stop himself from wondering.

Where is Zack?

"He's…"

_Dead? Gone? Swallowed? Buried, sick, like us? Caught…?_

"He's not here right now."

Right now… right now… when would later, the future, become the present? When could they transcend time, time… to be together? Again, one…

"I want him." Cloud bit his lip. "Need him." Sighed, shuddered an awful, heart-wrenching shiver. "Feels cold without him. Empty. When will he come?"

Few times in history could humans actually taste the dankness of suffering—see the shape of ache stretched across the atoms in the air so clearly their senses stung. Few times in history was sadness like drizzle, or perspiration, sprinkled about boldly naked forms. Of course, this was one of those times… events merited with the clarity of dazzling angels, and either soul chalked it up to dreaming. What they could feel, maybe, was an ounce of death. Beckoning to them, above, beyond, intercepting space…

A time later—an infinite age, broken through the wood panels on the floor—the door rattled. The peace lifted from Cloud's chest and shattered; his heart thudded wildly against a bruised ribcage. The door rattled again, and Sephiroth's arm tugged him back down to the bed.

"Quiet, still," the gravely glass-cut edge voice warned, softened around the syllables of a whisper.

The creak of wood announced a visitor. An intruder, by all means. And the house itself, the old trees shipped for lumber, nailed in place and built so sturdily, sighed and held its breath. The forest groaned in an unwelcoming serenade of displeasure, and feathers whipped strangely in the wind. Tapping against the windows. Begging, eerily, entrance to their hidden domicile. What they were doing was wrong, unlawful… considered inhumane. Punishable by death. Sephiroth didn't care. Cloud didn't know enough to know better.

The door stood solidly, then blew closed. And still, imposing the stillness of sought after calm, footsteps. One, two, three. One, two, boots over panels. Two bodies shuffled between sheets, anxious. Sephiroth knew. Cloud could only imagine. Zack? Zack, Zack, Zack? One, two, three, four. Deep, throaty against the floor, purposeful. One, two… one, three, two, four? The rhythm stopped, pulsated, yawned forward. Out of synchronization. And then there were two. One, two. One, two. Three, four. Three, four. There were two presences looming over the bed in the little hide-out… presences like demons at a wake.

Eyes like shining silver, yet colored, so brightly, so… A book propped open, flat in one hand. A voice, cracking the barriers of their love, their perfect tranquil solitude.

"_Will you be taking flight? Towards the planet that hates us."_

They had been found.

xxx

**Author's note:** I hope all of you are beginning to formulate some ideas on what it's all about. If you aren't, never fear, it's… still being developed! This little plot I'm cooking, anyway. Sorry it's so terribly short, but… it's my stopping place. These chapters haven't been horribly long in the first place, so.

Please enjoy, and maybe review? I have a doctor's appointment I'm really not looking forward to tomorrow, and… a review, if only ONE, would make me elated. You literally have NO idea how awesome it'd make me feel.


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